Quote from hillcountry on January 19, 2019, 12:05 pm

Here's one from 2018 that caught my eye. The full research article is available. It fits the ongoing theme that only potential treatments are being studied, not cures; but there's usually something that we can glean, having gone this far. I'm still pondering this one and need to talk to a chemist. Anybody ever run across the old-time practice of putting a silver-dollar into a jug of milk to keep it fresher, longer? That anti-biotic effect would suggest that atoms might be sublimating off the coin in some way. I'm wondering if atoms of gold would or could leach into a liquid beverage as well. So, I've got a one-ounce gold Maple Leaf at the bottom of my coffee cup since reading this one. My wife thinks I'm goofy, but it's good for a laugh in any case, and who knows, an atom here and an atom there, and pretty soon yer talking a therapeutic dose.  It would be interesting to find that the ancient attraction to wearing gold had something to do with an inherent healing property. I remember a National Geographic a few years back that had a magnificent gold-breastplate worn by a Sycthian king unearthed somewhere in the Balkans I think. Remember when lots of folks wore copper bracelets to help with arthritis? Was there anything to that? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29865197

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2018 Jun 1;8(6). pii: E396. doi: 10.3390/nano8060396.

Biocompatible Gold Nanoparticles Ameliorate Retinoic Acid-Induced Cell Death and Induce Differentiation in F9 Teratocarcinoma Stem Cells

(sorry about the long blank space below - can't figure out how to edit it gone) (well, let's see what happens when I edit it now - August 12, 2019 - while rereading the paper and considering what Dr. Thomas Levy is saying about oxidation and toxicity, more pops out at me this time) 

Abstract

The unique properties of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have attracted much interest for a range of applications, including biomedical applications in the cosmetic industry. The current study assessed the anti-oxidative effect of AuNPs against retinoic acid (RA)-induced loss of cell viability; cell proliferation; expression of oxidative and anti-oxidative stress markers, pro- and anti-apoptotic genes, and differentiation markers; and mitochondrial dysfunction in F9 teratocarcinoma stem cells. AuNPs were prepared by reduction of gold salts using luteolin as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The prepared AuNPs were spherical in shape with an average diameter of 18 nm. F9 cells exposed to various concentrations of these AuNPs were not harmed, whereas cells exposed to RA exhibited a dose-dependent change in cell viability and cell proliferation.

The RA-mediated toxicity was associated with increased leakage of lactate dehydrogenase, reactive oxygen species, increased levels of malondialdehyde and nitric oxide, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, and a reduced level of ATP. Finally, RA increased the level of pro-apoptotic gene expression and decreased the expression of anti-apoptotic genes.

Interestingly, the toxic effect of RA appeared to be decreased in cells treated with RA in the presence of AuNPs, which was coincident with the increased levels of anti-oxidant markers including thioredoxin, glutathione peroxidases, glutathione, glutathione disulfide, catalase, and superoxide dismutase. Concomitantly, AuNPs ameliorated the apoptotic response by decreasing the mRNA expression of p53, p21, Bax, Bak, caspase-3, caspase-9, and increasing the expressions of Bcl-2 and Bcl-Xl. Interestingly, AuNPs not only ameliorated oxidative stress but also induced differentiation in F9 cells by increasing the expression of differentiation markers including retinoic acid binding protein, laminin 1, collagen type IV, and Gata 6 and decreasing the expressions of markers of stem cell pluripotency including Nanog, Rex1, octamer-binding transcription factor 4, and Sox-2. These consistent cellular and biochemical data suggest that AuNPs could ameliorate RA-induced cell death and facilitate F9 cell differentiation. AuNPs could be suitable therapeutic agents for the treatment of oxidative stress-related diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and neurodegenerative diseases.

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Quote from Liz on January 19, 2019, 11:28 pm

This is all incredibly interesting. Makes me want to put my gold necklace into my apple juice. Thanks John!!

Quote from Patti on January 20, 2019, 1:48 pm

You can buy colloidal gold (and silver, of course) as a liquid supplement. It's not terribly expensive. Probably much more absorbable and standardized than putting gold coins in your coffee (or apple juice). 🙂  You'd want to research first, naturally, but Amazon has numerous brands available. I bought some probably ten years ago as it was recommended for my daughter's epilepsy. I was pretty skeptical and never gave her much, but it intrigues me to look into this again. Thanks for posting, John.

Quote from DWL on January 20, 2019, 7:35 pm

Thanks for setting up the new forum topic,  John.   I read through the documents you sent and several of the "similar" research documents noted at the link sites.  Interesting info!   Does anyone know if colloidal  gold could be made like colloidal silver, and if so, might it be helpful as a topical treatment?

 

Quote from Guest on January 21, 2019, 4:06 am

Very interesting finds. And snopes is a fake news websites.

Quote from hillcountry on January 28, 2019, 7:27 pm

Here's the abstract from that Glyphosate paper.

Chem Res Toxicol. 2010 Oct 18;23(10):1586-95. doi: 10.1021/tx1001749. Epub 2010 Aug 9.

Glyphosate-based herbicides produce teratogenic effects on vertebrates by impairing retinoic acid signaling.

Paganelli A¹, Gnazzo V, Acosta H, López SL, Carrasco AE.

Author information

Abstract

The broad spectrum herbicide glyphosate is widely used in agriculture worldwide. There has been ongoing controversy regarding the possible adverse effects of glyphosate on the environment and on human health. Reports of neural defects and craniofacial malformations from regions where glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) are used led us to undertake an embryological approach to explore the effects of low doses of glyphosate in development. Xenopus laevis embryos were incubated with 1/5000 dilutions of a commercial GBH. The treated embryos were highly abnormal with marked alterations in cephalic and neural crest development and shortening of the anterior-posterior (A-P) axis. Alterations on neural crest markers were later correlated with deformities in the cranial cartilages at tadpole stages.

Embryos injected with pure glyphosate showed very similar phenotypes.

Moreover, GBH produced similar effects in chicken embryos, showing a gradual loss of rhombomere domains, reduction of the optic vesicles, and microcephaly. This suggests that glyphosate itself was responsible for the phenotypes observed, rather than a surfactant or other component of the commercial formulation.

A reporter gene assay revealed that GBH treatment increased endogenous retinoic acid (RA) activity in Xenopus embryos and cotreatment with a RA antagonist rescued the teratogenic effects of the GBH.

Therefore,

we conclude that the phenotypes produced by GBH are mainly a consequence of the increase of endogenous retinoid activity.

This is consistent with the decrease of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling from the embryonic dorsal midline, with the inhibition of otx2 expression and with the disruption of cephalic neural crest development.

The direct effect of glyphosate on early mechanisms of morphogenesis in vertebrate embryos opens concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to GBH in agricultural fields.

PMID:

20695457

DOI:

10.1021/tx1001749

 

 

Quote from hillcountry on January 28, 2019, 7:42 pm

Diving into Methylsulfonylmethane (aka Methyl Sulfone). I figure if retinoid toxicity causes cancer, once a person has it they might want more than just a retinol-free diet to deal with it. This paper is full of new material I haven't encountered anywhere else.

Methyl Sulfone Blocked Multiple Hypoxia- and Non-Hypoxia-Induced Metastatic Targets in Breast Cancer Cells and Melanoma Cells    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633041/

The failure of Fe-S cluster biogenesis causes an increase in transferrin [29]. Cancer cells crave iron; the increase in transferrin and decrease in ferroportin [30,31] leads to an increase in the labile iron pool, providing additional iron to support cancer cell proliferation. Fe-S cluster biogenesis begins in the mitochondria and once formed, clusters exit to the cytosol. Mitochondrial iron-overload and genomic instability result from the failure of Fe-S cluster biogenesis [32]. Ferroportin is the only know iron efflux pump protein and is necessary as part of tightly controlled iron homeostasis. Studies have demonstrated a correlation between decreased cellular ferroportin and metastatic progression [33]. We show that methyl sulfone decreased miR-210 and transferrin, and increased ISCU1/2 and ferroportin. Our results identify methyl sulfone as a multi-targeting small molecule that blocks the survival/proliferative effect of hypoxic and non-hypoxic promoters of metastatic phenotypes and brings normality back to cellular metabolism. JF: now, when I read "genomic instability", particularly in relation to mitochondria, I think retinoic acid. 

 

Quote from hillcountry on January 28, 2019, 8:11 pm

Quote from Patti on January 20, 2019, 1:48 pm

You can buy colloidal gold (and silver, of course) as a liquid supplement. It's not terribly expensive. Probably much more absorbable and standardized than putting gold coins in your coffee (or apple juice).  You'd want to research first, naturally, but Amazon has numerous brands available. I bought some probably ten years ago as it was recommended for my daughter's epilepsy. I was pretty skeptical and never gave her much, but it intrigues me to look into this again. Thanks for posting, John.

Thanks Patti, you got me looking around for information on it and found this Wiki page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_gold

Sounds like it's worth a try, but like you said, after a bit research.

We used to make crude colloidal silver back in the 80's with three 9-volt batteries and a couple of pure silver wires. One of my friends figured he'd ramp-up production and used a car battery and a couple of silver dollars. You should have seen the cloudy stuff in that water!

Quote from DWL on January 28, 2019, 8:24 pm

I'm not able to open the YouTube link.  Is it working for other viewers?  Thanks!